Fidel Castro to Obama: We don’t need your presents

Fidel Castro, who handed power to his brother Raul a decade ago, spoke out against President Obama's Cuba visit in a letter on Monday. In his 1,500-word letter, which was published in a state-run newspaper called Granma, Fidel said that Cuba didn't need any gifts from the "empire." Castro writes of Obama, "My modest suggestion is that he reflects and doesn't try to develop theories about Cuban politics."

During his visit, President Obama described "a future of hope" for Cuba in his historic live TV address delivered from the Grand Theatre in Havana. Obama told Castro that he did not need to fear a threat from the US, nor from "the voice of the Cuban people." He also called for the lifting of the 54 year old US trade embargo against Cuba. Obama's visit to Cuba was the first by an American president since the Communist revolution in 1959.

Castro analyzed crucial sections of Obama's speech line by line, creating a written dialogue with Obama. The former Cuban leader critiqued parts of Obama’s speech which he perceived to be slights and insults. Castro pointed out Obama's failure to give credit to indigenous Cubans and Castro's prohibition of racial segregation after coming to power in 1959. He also referenced the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, in which a CIA-sponsored paramilitary force of Cuban exiles attempted to take over Cuba.

Quoting Obama's speech in which he said that "it is time, now, for us to leave the past behind," Castro wrote in his letter that, "I imagine that any one of us ran the risk of having a heart attack on hearing these words from the President of the United States."

"No one should pretend that the people of this noble and selfless country will renounce its glory and its rights," Fidel Castro wrote. "We are capable of producing the food and material wealth that we need with work and intelligence of our people."

Here’s why Jesse Ventura thinks the embargo should be lifted:

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